Legend of Tarzan Has Solid $6.1M on Friday as Second Weekend Begins; Projected Weekend Total is $20M

UPDATE SAT MIDNIGHT: Tracking Deadline’s upgrades of Legend of Tarzan, they started by saying this on Saturday morning: “Warner Bros./Village Roadshow’s The Legend Of Tarzanis poised to take in a second weekend in the vicinity of $15M, raising its 10-day cume to $75.8M.”

So it seems like Deadline finally got the memo and realizes that for the fifth time in a row they had underestimated how LOT would perform.

Also of signficance is the number “2” next to Tarzan in the quote above. Yup. It means that Tarzan has now moved ahead of Finding Dory with an estimated $20.1M vs Dorie’s estimated 20.0M. These are all estimates so we’ll have to wait and see — but a second place finish on it’s second weekend would be pretty good.

UPDATE SAT 11AM: Scott Mendelson at Forbes also sees it landing at $20M this weekend:

The Legend of Tarzan took a slight (but understandable) tumble on its second Friday, earning $6.1 million (-57%) to bring its eight-day cume to $66.898m. We can expect a $20m second weekend (-48%) for an $80m ten-day total. It’s holding fine and may pass $100m by the end of next week. Once again, if not for that $180m budget, this would be cause for relative celebration. It’s certainly doing a lot better than most of us expected. And if it goes nuts overseas, Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. and Village Roadshow may pop the champagne anyway, albeit with little guarantee that a sequel would break out.

ORIGINAL POST SAT 8AM: Studio estimates for Friday are in and Legend of Tarzan is in with $6.1M, which means it is likely will surpass the Deadline estimate of $15M for the weekend. For reference, John Carter did $3.9M on its second Friday en route to a second weekend of $3.9M en route to a $15M second weekend of $13.5. Two comparables that provide some guidance — Salt (which opened $36M en route to 118M total) did 5.8M on its second Friday in route to a second weekend of $19.5M, and 21 Jump Street (which opened t $36.3M en route to $138M total) did $6.2M on its second Friday en route to a $20.5M second weekend.

Another interesting factor — the $6.1M represents an upgrade from initial estimates late Friday night of $5.6M — so again LOT has outperformed initial estimates.

Box office mojo still has LOT in the $15-18M range for the weekend — but they wrote that when the estimate was $5.6M.

As for last weekend’s openers, The Legend of Tarzan is one to keep an eye after an opening well above expectations. A drop over 50% is to be expected for a weekend around $15-18 million. The “A-” CinemaScore gives the film some measure of hope as does the IMDb rating of 7.1, which has held rather steady over the past few days, dropping only slightly as more grades have come in.

Last night, before any of this was in — I was saying $20M. I’m still there after a $6.1M Friday. I think we’re looking at a $9M Saturday and $6M Sunday — for $21M overall for the second weekend. We’ll see if my “rooting interest” in LOT has colored my projections.

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